More than 100 prisoners have killed themselves in English and Welsh prisons so far this year, making 2016 the worst year for custodial suicides on record, a new report has found.
The Howard League for Penal Reform said on Monday it had been notified of 102 suicides since the start of the year – equivalent to one every three days.
That makes 2016 the worst year for prison suicides since records began in 1978, surpassing 2004 when there were 94 self-inflicted deaths.
The suicide rate in prisons – 120 per 100,000 – is about 10 times that of the wider population.
And the report comes as the families of two prisoners were granted permission to pursue legal action in the High Court against HMP Woodhill, where 17 prisoners have died since May 2013, including six this year.
Today's report, Preventing Prison Suicide, is jointly published by the Howard League and the Centre for Mental Health.
The charities said the rise in deaths has coincided with staff cuts, prisons overcrowding, and an increase in violence. Prison staff staged a walkout on 15 November because of concerns over violence and mismanagement.
The report argues that suicides could be prevented by letting prisoners lead a normal life, involving regular meals and socialising.
And it calls for an end to the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme (IEP), brought in by former justice secretary Chris Grayling in 2013, which puts restrictions on the belongings and items of clothing prisoners can keep, the activities they can take part in, and their access to family contact.
Frances Crook, CEO of the Howard League, said: "The number of people dying by suicide in prison has reached epidemic proportions. No one should be so desperate while in the care of the state that they take their own life, and yet every three days a family is told that a loved one has died behind bars.
“Cutting staff and prison budgets while allowing the number of people behind bars to grow unchecked has created a toxic mix of violence, death, and human misery."
Crook is due to meet the current justice secretary, Liz Truss, to discuss this and other prison reform issues on Monday.
HMP Woodhill, a category A prison in Milton Keynes with capacity for 819 prisoners, has seen the highest number of suicides in recent years. Wandsworth, Liverpool, Leeds, and Exeter were the only other prisons with 10 or more suicides from 2013 to 2016.
Today's High Court case is brought by the families of Ian Brown, who killed himself on 19 July 2015, and Daniel Dunkley, who died on 2 August this year.
They are bringing action against the prison's governor, Rob Davies, and the secretary of state, on the grounds that they acted unlawfully by failing to protect the prisoners. They want the court to force the prisons service to do more to prevent suicides in future.
Deborah Coles, director of the Inquest charity, which has worked with the families of the two men, said: "We see repeated and avoidable failures that result in human tragedies. Time and again the Ministry of Justice says that ‘lessons will be learned’ but there is no system to ensure that recommendations are carried out that could prevent yet more pain and loss of life."
In its initial summary response to the application for judicial review, the Ministry of Justice said that appropriate steps had been taken and that the claim was misconceived and unarguable.
BuzzFeed News has contacted the ministry for further comment.